


Birthday

by starlit_crow



Category: Naruto
Genre: Birthday Party, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Wholesome, just open your damn presents already, mysterious friend, you ask too many questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21681382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlit_crow/pseuds/starlit_crow
Summary: —Lamp flickers light, a steady storm drums over the tin roof.For a child living in any other country, today is normally the most unordinary of days. In a village swallowed by rain three orphans find themselves indoors yet again; waiting for their master to return.—
Relationships: Jiraiya & Konan (Naruto), Jiraiya & Nagato | Pain, Jiraiya & Yahiko (Naruto), Konan & Nagato | Pain & Yahiko, Konan & Yahiko (Naruto)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Birthday

\--

“I’m bored,” Yahiko whines. 

The door slides open behind him. Konan smirks as her friend yelps, all composure lost, and he turns around to berate the intruder. “Oi, Nagat—“

“Hi, Bored,” Jiraiya’s voice rumbles behind the door frame, and he pokes his sodden head into view, “I’m Sensei.”

Chaos ensues as he enters. Yahiko hollers. Konan vaults over the low table, a commendable distance, and throws her arms around his neck. 

“Alright, alright, calm down,” he says, obviously pleased, “no need to go wild.”

They’re getting stronger, he thinks, if Konan’s grip around him is any indication. Yahiko, hurt pride long forgotten, bounces on the balls of his feet excitedly.

“Where’s Nagato?”

“I’m here, sensei,” comes a small voice. The redhead burrows into Jiraiya’s side, not caring how his sensei’s wet clothes soak his own. 

“You’re back! You’re really back!—“ Yahiko crows, “—I had faith in you all along. I knew you wouldn’t forget!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He lets them cling for a little longer before shaking them off. “Okay, okay, let me breathe! We have lots of things to do.”

——

He watches them while he takes his sandals off. Konan, forever organised, barks orders at Yahiko to clean up the papers and tins scattered around the small room. Nagato struggles gamely with the long-handled broom after; although small, he has a good work ethic and always tries his hardest. A good boy, he thinks, even ready with a dry towel for poor Sensei’s hair. 

It’s good to be home - even if home right now is a two-room, drafty cabin with great potential for renovation.

Jiraiya arranges the shoes neatly and meets Konan’s approving gaze. “Mmhmm,” she hums, nodding sagely, “even Sensei is neat! Yahiko, hurry up!”

He ducks his head to hide a smirk. Yahiko’s squawk of protest is terrifically endearing, but there’ll be hell to pay if the boy sees his master laughing at him. “Ah, it’s clean enough,” he offers, opting to throw him a bone. “We don’t need much room anyway. Come here, everyone—“ and he waves them to sit at the low table.

Konan tut-tuts. 

“It’s okay for a birthday party,” Nagato murmurs, “right, Sensei?”

“You’re absolutely right, Nagato. Yahiko, come on. Don’t mind Konan. Maybe you can make her something nice for dinner tomorrow.”

She pulls a face but acquiesces. Yahiko bounds over to sit next to Nagato. Jiraiya opens his pack; three orphans lean in unison. “Now today, we have something really fun,” he declares, pulling a small scroll out. “Who wants to guess what this is?”

“It...it’s a—“ Nagato starts, falters, then looks to Konan questioningly. Yahiko raises an eyebrow. Konan makes a soft hmm-hmm under her breath, then offers, albeit cautiously, “It’s a...scroll?”

“Yes, but there’s something much more to this one.”

He unravels it: ever one for theatrics, he sweeps his hand one side to the next over its length; it lays flat upon the table with the fuinjutsu staring at the rafters. 

The jutsu to summon is imprinted in his hands now, he could trace it through the lines of his palms. But he wonders—can they figure out how it works?

“In this scroll,” he explains, leaning back, “is a feast. But you have to find it.”

The silence is palpable. Nagato’s eyes, normally hidden behind the scarlet fringe, are wide. Konan bites her lip, then leans over the scroll studiously. “It’s a technique of some sort,” she starts, “where you can hide something in it. Is it something that you can — you can make it flat? Is it in the paper?” 

“Not quite.”

“No hints?” Nagato asks. Jiraiya shakes his head gravely. “Hmm. Is it... in the shadow? No...”

The children debate for a little while, crowding the table, pulling at the scroll here and there. Yahiko pulls at his cowlick, a telling sign of deep thought. “It’s in the ink,” he suggests finally, pointing vaguely, “the thing there. But it’s squished.”

Squished, Jiraiya thinks, what literary brilliance. Good try. Getting there.

“Sensei’s smiling,” Konan enthuses. “That must be it! Good work, Yahiko!”

“Yeah, but he didn’t say yes. It’s like that but different.”

Nagato prods the seal cautiously; once, like he’s testing to see if it’s hot, then a second time when nothing happens. “In here, right.” He rubs his chin like an old man, a funny little habit he must have picked up from somewhere else. “So it’s like a...a jutsu you can write down. Is that right?” he asks. “Then you have to do something else...”

Yahiko picks up his trailed sentence. “There has to be two parts to it. You touched it and it didn’t do anything, so that means you need this thing and you have to make some hand signs too. Is that right?”

“That’s one part of it.”

The room erupts. Two voices shout and a third, softer one pleads for him to show them. Jiraiya raises his hands with a laugh.

“Alright, alright, calm down. Get back a little.”

This will be fun, he thinks, and makes the relevant hand signs. He slaps his hand down over the seal. The orphans crane over the scroll, near vibrating with anticipation. 

Nothing happens.

“S-Sensei?” Yahiko manages after a beat, looking at him. Jiraiya floods the seal with chakra and feels the jutsu activate under his fingers. 

“I told you to get back.”

Smoke explodes outwards. Nagato dives under the table. Konan coughs on a vexed shout—“SENSEI!”

He can’t stop laughing. Not even biting his tongue can stop it; just the look of pre-teen, righteous shock on Yahiko’s face made it perfect. Ah, hell. Worth every scolding that might come. 

He fans the smoke away. Konan holds her hand over her mouth. Yahiko sputters in surprise, and wheezes something ending in, ‘—should see this’.

Nagato’s head pops out from under the table, eyes round as saucers. 

“That—“ he starts, then pauses, taking in the sight before him, “oh. Oh, wow.”

The table is now covered with a lustrous red cloth—a blanket, but richly thick and embroidered—with a neat stack of four bowls, four sets of cutlery, and a large, jolly noodle pot arranged with great care on top. A frosted cake glistens temptingly with sugar icing in the lamplight. Beside this treasure sits a basket of buns with an envelope; a generous, still-steaming teapot with cups rounds out the banquet. 

“So, what do you think?” Jiraiya prods.

“How did—what—” Konan manages. The others are wordless, eyes roaming over each item in disbelief. He claps her on the shoulder. “Figure it out after. Go wash up.”

\----

“If you give me your bun, you can have some of my cake,” Yahiko offers, singsong. 

Nagato pulls a face. “The best bit is gone. You ate all the icing already ...but, Konan, I’ll give you my bun for your icing.”

“No deal,” she says, in between noodle slurps. “You shouldn’t have scoffed it. Maybe Sensei will give you his.”

Jiraiya, half-listening, catches Nagato’s gaze. He’s got a puppy dog look in those ringed eyes—the kid really does go for the sweet things in life. “Go for it,” he sighs. The hot tea is good enough already; any more and he’ll have to go to the dentist. 

He is much more interested in the accompanying envelope. He doesn’t need to read the names on the front—those three are here already—he is far more interested in the poem on the back.

On a withered branch, / A crow has stopped / Autumn evening

A classic, if he said so himself. So well-read. 

“What have you got there?” Yahiko inquires over his shoulder. He shows the boy the front of the letter. 

“Mail for you.”

“Who’s it from?” Nagato asks, around a mouthful of cake. Konan nods questioningly at his elbow. They have an uncanny idea of when to crowd around, he’s learned.

“It’s from our mysterious friend, as always.” He lifts the flap, pulls the letter out. Sweet scent hits him; soft and musky. Incredible, in such a desolate place like this. “I’ll read it for you.”

‘To dear Konan and Yahiko,

Today is a very special day for you. I hope that even in this frightening situation that you are able to celebrate even a little bit. Please enjoy your presents and do your best to work hard under Jiraiya-sensei’s guidance. Happy birthday.’

Yahiko smiles widely. “They remembered too. Did you tell them?”

“Most of it was made already, you know. But I asked them to do something special.” He clears his throat, and continues.

‘To dear Nagato—’ he raises his gaze, and the redhead is visibly surprised, ‘—one cannot have a very special day without their best friends. The greatest gift you can give your friends is to love and care for them, and be by their side always. So, I hope that today you have a wonderful day too. With love and all my good wishes, your friend.’

The room is quiet and contemplative, as it always is post-reading of letters. He takes the opportunity to drain his tea. 

“It’s not safe for us to leave to meet them, is it,” Konan says, breaking the silence. It isn’t a question.

“They don’t know any jutsu,” he replies. She holds the envelope tight to her chest. “They’re not like we are.”

“A civilian?” Nagato asks, and Jiraiya nods.

“No jutsu. Very, very good at writing letters though.”

“Are they a lady friend?” Konan asks suddenly. The other two stare at her. “Well, I just remembered but...the envelope smells like the perfume Mother used to wear.”

“Well...” he draws the word out. A storm of protests brews. How long had it been—almost a year of deception—building up the idea of a shadowy benefactor? Konan has no idea how quickly she jumped the gun. Can’t surprise that kid at all; she’ll stumble across a secret without knowing what it is. Too sharp for her own good. Shouldn’t have let them get their little mitts on the goods. 

“Well?” Yahiko breathes.

“Well, I was going to tell you who they were, but...” he trails off deliberately. 

“But?” 

“They did mention presents...”

\----

“I love it,” Konan smiles. The stack of origami paper sits pride of place in front of her. “I’ll make something nice for her.”

“You still think they’re a lady?” Yahiko asks. 

“Positive. Sensei didn’t say no.”

Nagato glances over the top of his new book, eyes tracking the conversation. Yahiko frowns.  
“He didn’t say yes, either. You can’t put it past him that it’s a trick, right? That he’s doing it himself.”

The pair cross their arms, beautifully albeit accidentally choreographed. The envelope and letter have been analysed a dozen times; the scent, the words, the poem on the outside. No reason to doubt Jiraiya-sensei’s innocence, Konan reasons, there’s no way someone could change their handwriting that much. Yahiko is not so sure.

Sticky plates have been stacked neatly onto one corner of the table. Dishes can wait; there is a mystery to solve. 

“It doesn’t make sense that it’s a trick though,” Konan counters. “There’s no point. I don’t think Sensei would be able to do all that by himself either. He had to have help from somewhere.”

“Well...what about that lady? The one who was with him and the snake guy?”

“I don’t think so. She didn’t seem like she’d do something like that.”

“So it’s maybe someone new? Someone we don’t know,” Yahiko groans, “that could be anyone in the whole world...”

“Okay, so… Sensei leaves for about two days at a time. Now, he once said that he could travel for a whole day without stopping, but that means that he’d have to run for a half a day there and back, and have another day to rest and get supplies.”

“How long does it take for tea to cool down?” Nagato pipes up suddenly.

Konan shrugs. “Not long, I guess.”

“I’m more interested in how far he can go. I think,” Yahiko poses, “that he goes somewhere else completely. Some of the fruit he brings home is way different to what we have here.”

“You think he goes to another country?”

“Mmhmm. Do you remember the oranges? You need lots of sun to grow those. I asked Sensei about them.”

“Where’s somewhere with a lot of sun? Fire Country, Wind Country...Grass Country,” Konan counts on her fingers. “I haven’t seen any sand or dust or anything though, so I guess it’s not Wind.”

They ponder this in silence.

“I reckon it’s Fire Country,” Yahiko mutters after a while. “He’s from Konoha, so he’ll know people there. But Konoha is too far away, so they have to be close to here. Just near enough to the border that it’s not ages away, but not too far that it’s raining a lot.”

They barely register Nagato closing his book.

“What else then? I can’t think of any other --”

“Hey, Sensei,” the redhead asks, breaking their concentration. “Is that jutsu you used before something to do with time?”

Jiraiya stirs from his place by the door. He has been half-awake during the whole conversation, comfortably drifting off like the smoke from his cigarettes. “What makes you say that?”

Konan shares a quizzical glance with Yahiko. 

“Well,” Nagato says, “the tea was still hot when it came out of that jutsu. Same as the noodles. I was thinking and thinking about it all through dinner, but then thought well...what if it was something that stopped time?”

“Hmm, that’s an interesting thought.”

“And then, I thought, even if it stopped time then it would still be the size it was, right? But what if it wasn’t there while time was stopped? How far around would time stop? How big is the place with stopped time? Is it still with our friend, but stuck in time until you activate the jutsu?”

“You’re doing a lot of thinking,” Jiraiya says pleasantly. Nagato waits expectantly. Kid’s like a bulldog, he sighs, can’t drop something once he’s got the idea. “Well, you’re almost there. Very, very well done. But let’s just say that—in this area of stopped time - what would happen if someone touched the teapot?”

Nagato ponders this for a moment. “Maybe it would burn someone’s hand forever if it was too hot, but because it was stopped in time you wouldn’t be able to pour it out.”

“Wouldn’t they be affected by the stopped time too?”

“What if it wasn’t just time, but like it wasn’t there?” Yahiko interrupts from the table. “Like in the ink, the teapot’s kind of…written down in that drawing. It’s too big to have just lying around like that.”

“Yeah, it stops time but makes the stuff smaller too,” Konan adds. 

Close enough—he doubts they’ll understand it fully until he shows them. Jiraiya lurches to his feet with a groan, makes the arduous journey across the room, and sits himself down to join the children.

“Right. Say you’ve got —“ he pinches the bridge of his nose; his eyes are already gritty with sleep. “You’ve got something small. Like this bottle cap.” He demonstrates. The cap glints in his fingers. “Pretend it’s an apple, or a cherry or something. Now normally, like Nagato said, you can have a jutsu that can teleport something to your side from far away. But, that won’t stop the passage of time, so if you have a bowl of noodles waiting to be summoned to you and you forget, well—what will it look like in a month?”

“It’ll be really gross.”

“Absolutely gross. So, what would prevent that?”

“Stopping time,” Yahiko suggests. Jiraiya nods, prodding him for more information. “Ah, but—it might be too big to store at the other place, so you have to make it smaller. You take it with you, too, so that means...it’s not a—it’s not a teleportation jutsu!”

“Very good. So,” Jiraiya says, “we have a time stop, but we also need to reduce the physical space that the items take up. So, then it becomes a…?”

Blank stares. Yeah, he figured that would happen. 

“This is what’s known as a space-time spell: a kaifu ninjutsu. Anything in the seal, or the ink, becomes beyond the grasp of time and beyond the dimensions of space. It exists, but doesn’t at the same time.” He passes the bottlecap between his fingers, transfers it from hand to hand. Three sets of eyes follow it hawkishly. “That is to teleport. You see it go from one to the other over whatever distance. But,” he rolls the cap into his hand, “when someone uses a kaifu ninjutsu, it’s removed from our time and our space.”

A cheap magician’s trick, to flick the bottle cap into his sleeve just before fingers close over palm. He opens his empty hand. 

“Where does it go?” Yahiko whispers.

Jiraiya shrugs. “Who knows. Another dimension where time is nothing and space doesn’t exist. Perhaps it floats in a vacuum. The only way you can know for sure is to go there yourself.” He presents the bottlecap from the other hand, and smiles at the look on their faces. “That’s a jutsu for another day.”

—

**Author's Note:**

> \--  
> new to ao3 and time to perish learning the tagging system
> 
> \--  
> 'mysterious friend' is an OC who might be written about later on if I have time and energy to do so


End file.
